Music Review Saturday: Florence + The Machine - Everybody Scream

On Halloween, the supreme witch Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine graced the world with her sixth studio album, Everybody Scream. Now, if you couldn’t tell by that first sentence that I am a huge Florence + The Machine fan. I like to describe the feeling of her music as dancing like you’re possessed in a flowy dress and scream singing from the deepest gut of your soul. However, I am a bigger fan of good music, so I will try my best to give an impartial review of her newest album. Everybody Scream features 12 tracks and was released concurrently with Everybody Scream (Chamber Version), which includes orchestral arrangements of 4 of the songs by Jules Buckley and the Idrîsî Ensemble as bonus content. I will be focusing on the main album, however. 

Everybody Scream

The song opens with the typical airy and sparkly sounds, instrumentation, and vocals that come to be expected of Welch, then makes a stark switch into a heavy drum and bass line. I think this opening section is indicative of this entire album because a lot of Welch’s work is lighter and retrospective, but nonetheless powerful. The last album, Dance Fever, tipped on the edge of some anger and frustration but balanced itself out with dancier tracks and softer instrumentals. In this album, though, Welch sinks her teeth in. 

The pre-chorus of the song is a command and response section, which I enjoyed because it feels like she is pulling her audience into her madness. Not to mention, this song is about her relationship to performing. The ending is a chant, which is not uncommon for Welch to include, but something about this particular one holds a depth of power I don’t think I’ve heard come out of a Florence + The Machine song— it’s chilling, raw, and demands you to keep listening.

One of the Greats

This is a heavy rock track from the beginning with a strong twangy guitar. I think the writing of this song is interesting because Welch is actively dissecting her own career in what it took for her to get to where she is, the sacrifices and work, but it’s also a critique of the music industry, of should it take this much of a person. Should you be chasing after that fabled greatness? Often throughout the song, there are references to emerging from the ground and rising from the dead; this, I think, could be saying that music and performing make her feel alive, or that getting famous in the industry gives someone new life from where they were nothing. It could also be in reference to the emergency life-saving surgery Welch received in 2023, that she was literally brought from the brink of death to continue performing. 

She also makes her regular feminist statement about the industry in this song, too, stating that “It’s funny how men don’t find power very sexy.”

In the end, Welch’s typical strings and all-encompassing arrangement get brought in, but it quickly gets cut off by off-key and shrill violins. This is Welch keeping us on our toes, not to get comfortable in the familiar, that this album is different.

Witch Dance

Panting, sex, and dancing with death. This song is a journey and pure adrenaline. Welch switches between ethereal singing and almost slam poetry with a few ghostly howls thrown in. I will admit this song, on second listen now, is not for me. I feel like, as a listener, I’m thrown around too much, and it leaves me discombobulated. I would not be surprised if that was Welch’s intention with the song, but it spiked my blood pressure too much for it to be an enjoyable listen for me.

Sympathy Magic

Now this is Welch at her cinematic arrangement best. It opens with soft guitar and harp, brings in a grounding piano, moves into driving synths, and hits home with strong percussion. This song sounds like a protagonist who won’t quit for anything. And after several songs about death and being a force of nature, I think this sound is Welch reassuring that her life will continue, saying, “I can take it.” It was a classic Florence + The Machine song and a welcome pause in the album.

Perfume and Milk

The song is led with a strong guitar line, and the lyrics are more fragmented images. The vocals from Welch are far more contained here than in the previous songs, which lends itself to the feeling that this is a song of resting of reclaiming one’s power. The chorus of “All shall be well / All shall be will / Miracles are often inconvenient / And a prayer is a spell” feels like a prayer itself, a calming reassurance. The guitar continues, and a tambourine is added as the only instrumentation. I think because of my discipline in poetry and enjoyment of grounding songs, I really enjoyed this song. It’s my favorite song on the album.

Buckle

On my first listen, I was interested in why this song sounded different from what typically comes out of Florence + The Machine. The closest to this is her album High As Hope, but even then, it seems very different. Then I found Mitski cowrote the song, and everything made sense. The instrumentation is again simply a guitar, and the melody and lyrics are generally catchy, especially the chorus. The song details a supposedly ended relationship that was not healthy. But it poses the idea that no matter your age, you can face relationship issues that feel juvenile or make decisions for love that are otherwise immature. Overall, decent song all around.

Kraken

This song is the love child of “One of the Greats” and “Witch Dance” in the best way. Its lyric structure is narrative like “Witch Dance,” but the subject is “One of the Greats” in dissecting the music industry in how she has to be ruthless against those who could surpass her, or how the industry has supposedly turned her into a monster. It is a rock track led by an acoustic guitar with a harp thrown in, which I feel tones down and personalizes the ideas from “One of the Greats”. This song feels more like Welch’s personal experiences with the music industry. There are interludes of a choir singing behind Welch’s vocals instead of the previous screaming of the other songs. After “Witch Dance”, the album felt like it was returning to the style we know from Welch, and if “Perfume and Milk” was a reclaiming of power, “Kraken” is standing in her power. 

The Old Religion

This song opens with a somber piano, and when the bass comes in, it is rather contained. The instrumentals build into a synth, string, and timpani drums symphony. The entire composition does not feel harsh or angry; it feels wistful. The lyrics themselves lend to a lived-in frustration, of feeling caged by something. The Old Religion that the song continues to reference, I think, is a metaphor for addiction. That you urge for release, and this old habit can offer you that, but you know you shouldn’t do it. This could be in reference to Welch’s sobriety, which she often writes about and discusses on her social media.

Drink Deep

We start with clinking wind chimes and ghostly calls, and when Welch’s vocals start, so does what I believe to be an electric cello. The song feels like a hypnotic siren song, and it depicts what feels like the story of the island of the lotus eaters from Greek mythology, a group that engages in drugs and alcohol, which psychologically traps you for any amount of time that you can’t track. Once again, I think this is a song about Welch’s issues with drinking, detailing when she started by being pressured by these people, then despite the physical toll, she continued, and finally at the end realizing just how much these actions are damaging her by saying, “I realized I drank of myself,” and later, “It was made of me.” I loved the melody of this song and the vocal rift that Welch repeated, and the harmonies at the end that just drop to nothing, leaving you, as the listener, on that emotional cliff.

Music by Men

This arrangement is mostly comprised of an acoustic guitar and a piano with a little sprinkling of strings. But is it a satirical song of Welch trying to write music like men who never have to take blame or have their personal lives ruined by their careers. Her tone is incredibly jaded and seemingly fed up. She imagines a loving and gentle relationship that is not realistic in her current situation. It’s a beautiful and somber song.

You Can Have It All

This is what it feels like for simmered and shoved-down anger to explode. The instrumentals are unsettling, and when Welch sings, “You can have it all,” every raw emotion is left on display. My theory on the song is that it is about her surgery, which was to remove an ectopic pregnancy, which is when a fertilized egg grows on the outside of the uterus, with lines about daughters and “Am I a woman now?” Overall, it’s rough in the best way, and it leaves you feeling haunted.

And Love

This is the most harp-heavy song paired with piano and keyboard plunky-ness. But this is the saddest Welch has sounded on the whole album. It’s the wistfulness of “The Old Religion” and the rawness of “You Can Have It All” in melodic minors. I feel as though this is a love song to mortality with the repeated line of “Peace is coming.” The general gentleness of the song itself, and with the play out of the harps, lends itself to the feeling of a soft descent of the cliff that Welch has led us to and left us on. And for an album full of grief and anger, it feels fitting to end on mortality. 

All and all, I really enjoyed this album! It did throw me around more than I feel other Florence + The Machine albums do, but I feel the introduction to such raw emotion in her work is a welcome change. I think this is a great next step for Welch’s discography.